Monday, July 18, 2011

Something Old, Something New

Nope wasn't at a wedding this weekend, finally, but I did have a race on Sunday. They say at every race you learn something new. Sunday was my 6th triathlon and I thought I'd seen it all. But so far "they" are right - I've learned something new once again (maybe not learned but witnessed). This past race I actually saw 2 things I've never seen before in a race.

For the first time and hopefully for the last time - I saw an athlete get pulled out of the water by a lifeguard. Suddenly, I saw the athletes on the shore running into the water to get the swimmer that signaled that he was in distress. Everyone hurried to get him but the lifeguard on the jet ski was there first and pulled him to shore. It wasn't all that scary bc the guy just floated in the water only about 50 yards into the swim and waiting for someone to help him. It wasn't overly dramatic however, it pushed my start time back another 25 minutes. Which was also something else I wasn't used to. I was standing in my long-sleeved wetsuit sweating and having to pee but yet again, was unable to pee in the damn thing.

The swim was somewhat difficult in that the water was ice cold. So cold it was hard to put my face in so for the first few minutes I swam with my face out of the water. Once I got going with a full stroke I was surrounded by other swimmer as they moved the bouys and I thought I was on the outside of the swim. Only to find out i was now on the inside - got a nice, hard kick to the chest and was then pushed up against the rope holding the buoy out in the ocean. Once I got around the buoy everyone was able to spread out again and got back to swimming.

Bike was a nice, flat course but had a lot of turns in it which slowed down my time but nothing terrible. My philosophy on the bike is that I hammer as hard as I can since I can't run anyway might as well make up as much time as possible on the bike. Only to find out my coach does NOT like that thinking and I will now have to change it.

Again, since my run sucks I figured now would be a good time to pee. If only I could learn to pee in my wetsuit I'd be able to take 3 - 4 minutes off my run time! Finally out on the run is where I witnessed my second new thing for a race. A tall, very thin, young woman with long blond hair was running past me. While running she was talking to a couple walking near the beach (not in the race) - I then realized the woman walking didn't speak English. The athlete is pointing and pointing at something in the woman's hand so the woman hands her the Diet Coke she's holding. The athlete shakes her head and then proceeds to rip the hair tie off her wrist, tie up her hair and kept running! I asked her if she knew that woman and she said, "no but it's too damn hot and I forgot to put my hair up". I wish I could find the woman that was walking and ask her what she was thinking - I'd imagine she was in complete shock and has never had an athlete in the middle of a race steal her hair tie off her body!

I was having some shin pain while running so pretty much walked the first 1.5 miles. Then this guy came up to me and asked if I was ok, I told him just lack of training. He was a pretty big guy and said it he could do it, so could I. He and I ran in to the finish line the rest of the way - so thanks to my stranger friend, Dave, for getting me over the finish line. As well as sweet Kev. His race was over before I got to T2 and he met me on the run course with my water bottle. He ran with me for a little while and I made it across yet another finish line!!! Another race complete. Although this one didn't give out medals which I think should be against any USAT rules. I wanted to keep my timing chip since I wasn't getting a medal - isn't the bling really the only point in actually putting in the effort to complete a race???

Three weeks to the NYC Tri...yikes, need to get training for that one!